1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a point-of-sale (POS) system equipped with a POS terminal having a printing apparatus for printing on a receipt based on printing data, and with a POS server to control the POS terminal. This invention further relates to a network system, a method of generating printing data for a POS system, and a method of managing sales and advertisement information in a network system.
2. Description of Related Art
In a conventional POS system which is used for point-of-sale information control in a retail business such as a supermarket, a convenience store, or the like, the following POS terminal is widely used. The POS terminal in question is equipped with a printing apparatus which is capable of printing the so-called commodity information about the purchased commodity name and its price on a receipt after adding thereto advertising information such as commodity (or goods) advertisement, an announcement about an event which is scheduled to take place in the future, or the like. Recently, there are also cases where, aside from the advertising information, the information as a coupon ticket or a lottery ticket is added, whereby the POS system has become an effective advertising means for promoting the sales.
However, this kind of POS system is ordinarily connected to a POS server which performs general controlling over a plurality of terminals. Inputted pieces of information which are inputted, e.g., by scanning bar codes attached to the commodities are transmitted to the POS server. Based on these inputted pieces of information, the POS server generates commodity data inclusive of the prices of the commodities, or the like, and transmits them to the POS terminal. The POS terminal then adds the advertising information to the commodity data transmitted from the POS server to thereby generate the printing data. The printing data are then printed on the receipt by a printing apparatus which is disposed in the system. The printed receipt is then handed over by an operator to a customer, whereby the advertising information is transmitted to the customer.
In the case where a function to add the advertising information is installed to an existing POS system, i.e., the exiting POS system which can issue only the receipt containing thereon the information of the purchased commodities, such as commodity names and the prices thereof, the exiting POS servers and the POS terminals must be subjected to large-scale modifications, requiring a large amount of investment. It is to be noted that many retail sellers are thus obliged to give up the utilization of such a function despite the fact that the POS system provided with such a function becomes a very efficient advertising means.